


Of Death and (more than) Survival

by MidnightAlex



Series: The 100 Daemons AU [3]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Daemons, Azgeda Clarke Griffin, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-16
Updated: 2017-10-16
Packaged: 2019-01-18 06:54:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12383142
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MidnightAlex/pseuds/MidnightAlex
Summary: Clarke had fancied herself a bit smarter than that.OrClarke lets herself get captured by the Mountain Men, should get an Oscar for acting, and becomes Wanheda.





	Of Death and (more than) Survival

**Author's Note:**

> Ehi, everyone! I'm so sorry this one shot took me so long, but uni sneaked up on me and smacked me in the face.
> 
> I'm going to start working on the longer fic now, but I want to have at least the whole thing planned out and a few chapters already written before I start posting it.

Clarke stared at the dead ripa in front of her, the last in a long series.

Whatever drug they were addicted to left very characteristics signs on their bodies and minds and the withdrawal was brutal. Clarke sighed. She probably could have saved some of them if only she had a defibrillator. As it was, of the dozen ripas her people captured while patrolling the Trikru forest, only one survived by a miracle and he was far from healthy. In fact, withdrawal and seizures were probably going to kill him in the next couple of days if she wasn't careful.

Clarke sighed, feeling the familiar weight of Asher settling on her shoulder guard. She was exhausted. Her warriors had been bringing any ripa they could capture to her for the past couple of weeks since they set up camp into Trikru territory, and she had been running herself ragged trying to keep them alive and avoiding any possible conflict with Trikru scouts and warriors. In addition to that, she had to often traipse around the forest to get to TonDC for a meeting with Heda and other generals. 

Luckily enough, Anya kom Trikru hadn't tried to kill her again, although Indra and her seemed to be very interested in glaring holes at her.

Heda seemed irritated by that, if not also reluctantly amused. Clarke wasn't.

She made her way to her tent, wanting to get the stench of sickness and death out of her clothes and skin, checking the state of the camp while at it. Her warriors were well-trained and efficient, and Clarke had chosen carefully those she could depend on to keep a clear head among the Trikru, but one could never be too careful. There was no need to have a war between the two clans because of some hothead with a grudge.

She only hoped Heda could control her clan equally well, although after the episode with her old Fos she wasn't going to leave her back open.

 

 

Lexa was checking in with Indra about the state of TonDC and possible needs for the next winter when one of her scouts, Lincoln, was announced and brought in.

He seemed quite tense.

'Lincoln. Do you have something to report?'

The man looked at her steadily, dark eyes flashing with worry and doubt. Lexa fought the urge to furrow her brows.

'Yes, Heda. I have found something with regards to the Azgeda scouts that you might wish to know.'

Lexa stiffened on her throne. Had something happened to Klark? Were they attacked? Indra seemed to have the opposite reaction, although Lexa couldn't say she was surprised.

'Are they planning something against us?' The woman gripped the pommel of her sword and gritted her teeth, dark brows furrowed in a deep scowl. She whirled back towards Lexa before the scout could answer. 'Heda, we must attack before they can! We should never have invited those vipers into our territory!' Indra's daemon, a sleek Doberman, growled deep in his chest.

Lexa raised her hand, while Elesmera hooted irritatingly from behind her.

'We will not attack anyone before we know they mean us harm, Indra. Now let your scout speak.'

Indra grumbled some more but ultimately turned back to the man behind her and gestured at him to speak with an irritated wave of her hand.

'Heda, I was following a trail when I came across a group of Azgeda scouts in the process of tying up an unconscious ripa. They didn't notice me, and I followed them until they dragged him all the way to their camp. The guards at the gates didn't seem surprised, and I thought it might not have been the first time they brought ripas back.'

Lexa felt like stone on her throne. Klark was taking ripas into her camp? Why? And why had she not told her? A flash of hurt passed through her, but she snuffed it out ruthlessly. She narrowed her eyes, trying to think what Klark could gain from taking ripas alive.

She tuned out Indra's shouting for war and stared at the scout in front of her. 

'Did you see anything else?'

Lincoln seemed to be in deep thought for a few seconds, clearly thinking back to everything he had seen, only to finally shake his head.

'No, Heda. They were only capturing ripas.'

Lexa sat back on her throne, playing with her knife against one of the armrests.

She would have some words with Klark, then.

 

 

One of her warriors came running up to her to let her know Heda was at the gates of the camp. She raised a golden eyebrow, surprised and slightly suspicious, before telling him to get her to her tent.

She gave a last look to Morrik, the ripa that managed to get through the seizures and woke up enough to mumble something that might have been his name the day before. She was fairly certain he would recover, but decided to leave one of her healers to keep an eye on him anyway.

She made sure to instruct someone to tend to the Trikru's horses if necessary and made her way to her tent. She could already see a giant of a Trikru with a bear daemon and another shaved warrior with a mohawk talking to his -was that a butterfly? She almost laughed at seeing a stern looking Trikru with a colourful blue butterfly as a daemon. Asher didn't seem to share her control and flew away to possibly screech with laughter somewhere else.

She spared a glance to the two Trikru outside her tent, ignoring the way the giant bearded man with the bear glared at her. The other one seemed content enough to just look around and whisper to his butterfly. She still tried not to crack up.

She saw Lexa immediately upon entering the tent, pouring over the maps Clarke had left on the table.

'I wasn't expecting a visit. I would have dressed better.'

Lexa didn't seem in the mood for friendly banter though, judging from the penetrating stare she got in return. Clarke furrowed her brows.

'Has something happened? Are we under attack?' She reached the table, still looking at Lexa, confused. 'Lexa? Seriously, what happened?'

She saw Lexa clench her jaw. She seemed conflicted. Elesmera looked away from where she perched on her shoulder, looking small and insecure.

'One of my scouts brought me disturbing news, general Klark. He told me you have been bringing back ripas to camp even though the orders are to kill them.'

Clarke sighed and massaged her temple. She was too tired for that. And how was she going to sell her medical knowledge this time?

She studied Lexa for a few seconds, debating. Then she nodded to herself.

'Come on, then. I'll show you my nefarious plans.' 

Her sarcasm didn't seem to sit well with Lexa, who just clenched her jaw and stared at her with hard eyes.

 

 

Lexa stared at the back of Klark's head while she marched towards the healer's tent, Lincoln and Gustus a few paces behind her. Klark had not seemed scared when Lexa told her of Lincoln's discovery, only slightly troubled. 

She didn't look caught.

She just levelled her with a penetrating gaze, blue eyes calculating behind an impassive mask while Asher looked at his human. She had told her to follow her and Lexa had been too curious to say no.

The healer's tent was bigger than in most camps, clearly, Klark was quite invested in her people having the resources to get stitched up if necessary. Lexa thought back to what Klark told her about her mother having trained her as a healer; it made sense she would see healing as an important necessity in a war camp.

Inside the tent was a tired looking healer, his white beard carefully groomed and braided, who immediately jumped up at seeing them enter. He seemed to be about to greet them when Klark spoke, gesturing to him to sit back.

'Goulak, how is Morrik?'

The healer sighed deeply, looking even more tired. His cat daemon was curled up at his feet, fast asleep.

'Stable for now, general. The worse should be over for him.'

Klark nodded and sent the healer to get some rest. Ignoring the confused glances Lexa was sending her, she simply gestured to follow her when she made for a corner of the tent, where someone was lying on a cot.

As soon as Lexa could see who, exactly, was lying unconscious, her steps faltered. Gustus unsheathed his sword, and Lincoln breathed deeply. Both stopped just next to her, ready to take any danger in her place.

The ripa was emaciated and clearly unconscious, but Lexa tensed up all the same. She noticed there were signs of restraints on his wrists and thick nails planted on the cot with ropes dangling from them. He had been tied up and he had clearly struggled. An unconscious and equally emaciated dog daemon was lying on a pile of furs near the cot.

Lexa's hand migrated instinctively to her sword.

'Klark! What is the meaning of this?'

The blasted woman had bent slightly over the ripa, running a wet cloth over his face tenderly. She didn't look up to speak.

'He survived the worst of the poison and yesterday was lucid enough to tell me his name. Morrik. Or something like that. It was still a bit slurred.'

'Marrick.' Lincoln's voice came awed from behind Lexa, and she spared a glance to him to see his pained look fixed on the ripa. 'His name is Marrick. We grew up together in the same village.'

Klark put the rag away and looked steadily at Lincoln.

'If he survives the next few weeks, he should be able to get back to his village by next winter.'

 

 

Lexa's and her guards' expressions of utter surprise would have been comical in any other occasion -let alone a bear with jaw dropped and wide eyes, but Clarke could hardly laugh when speaking of the fate of someone who had been tortured as horribly as the man lying on the cot. She knew a thing or two about pain and had no interest in making fun of it.

'You- you are healing them?' 

Lexa's voice was as small as she had ever heard it and squeezed something in Clarke's chest. Her big green eyes were looking at her as if she had told her she could bring her mother back to life.

Clarke sighed, passing a hand over her face roughly, feeling the scars on her temples and chin.

'I've been trying to. Those bastards keep dying on me. He's the only one who survived. I just don't have the instruments to keep them alive.'

'Would you need to take them back to Azgeda to heal them?'

Clarke clenched her jaw. And now? 

'No. Azgeda doesn't have the instruments either.'

Lincoln walked closer to Marrick, looking as if he wanted to touch him, but refraining. He looked at her.

'I don't know of any way to heal ripas. And neither do the dozens of healers that tried before you.'

Clarke stared hard at him for a few seconds before turning a hard gaze to Lexa, still staring in awe at the ripa. What she said successfully got her attention though.

'That is for Heda's ears alone.'

 

 

Lexa was bursting with curiosity by the time Klark led them back to her tend, adamant that no one but her listened to what she had to say. Gustus protested vehemently, apparently, Klark's miracle with the ripas didn't gain her much more than fleeting respect from the man, who quickly returned to his customary hate and distrust of everything Azgeda. Though Lexa could see any hint of fear in his eyes now when he looked at Klark.

She couldn't say she blamed him.

She silenced Gustus with a raised hand, barely sparing him a glance, and followed Klark inside the tent.

The woman seemed extremely troubled now, Asher had his feathers puffed up and couldn't seem to find a place to rest. Lexa had expected him to fly away, as he seemed prone to do during other heavy conversations. Elesmera perched herself on the table, careful not to ruin any of the maps with her talons, and stared at Klark.

'I have told you of my people.' 

Lexa stared at Klark, confused. Klark was sitting on a low stool near the table, staring intently at the small knife she was rotating in her hand.

'When I told you about my family I assumed you thought I came from the Dead Zone, and I haven't corrected you.'

Lexa took a deep breath while her hand rested again on the pommel of her sword. What in the spirits?

Klark looked at her then, blue eyes as deep as the ocean.

'I fell from the sky. From a place called the Ark, where my people had gone to survive the Praimfaya. We used old world tek, that's how I have the knowledge of what the maunon have done to the ripas, and that's what I would need to heal them.'

Lexa and Elesmera stared at Klark like she had just grown a second, monstrous head. She flinched slightly when Asher flew on his human's shoulder, staring hard at her, wings slightly open in a menacing way.

'You- fell from the sky?' 

Klark's mouth was pulled into a tight line. She was pale, the scars on her face standing up even more than usual, the skin around her eyes tight with worry. She nodded curtly.

'Everything else I've told you was true, Nia did capture me and my mother was a healer. A doctor. It was just my origins I didn't specify.'

Lexa tightened her grip on her sword, ignoring the way blue eyes focused on her white knuckles.

'Your people. Are they a danger to the Kongeda? Are they coming down?'

Klark grimaced, still looking at her hand. Asher let out a low, broken laugh.

'Don't you remember why I was exiled? My father had discovered the Ark's system was failing and there would be no more air to breathe. They're probably all dead by now.'

Lexa furrowed her brows, her grip on her sword slackening although she didn't remove her hand.

'Why would they not try to come down rather than die? And how could there be no more air?'

Klark sighed, and relaxed on the stool, apparently confident Lexa wasn't going to kill her or pronounce her a traitor. Lexa wasn't quite so sure, but she was willing to listen to Klark.

For now.

 

Clarke was disgustingly tired. The past few weeks had been a constant carousel of dying ripas and angry Trikru and crazy maunon. Clarke just wanted to go to sleep, not explain the mess that was the Ark to someone who had no frame of reference to understand it.

'We didn't think anyone had survived the bombs…the Praimfaya. We thought we were the last ones, and that it would have been a few more generations before Earth was habitable again. I guess we were very arrogant in that. That's why Jaha -our leader- sent me here; he couldn't execute me because of our laws, no one under 18 years old could be executed, but he could send me on a suicide mission on the excuse that they would monitor me. If I survived the Ark could come down if not, they were doomed anyway. It was just his luck that Nia took away the bracelet that was supposed to let them know I was still alive. For all they know I died a slow and painful death because of the radiation.'

Lexa seemed a mix of confused, sceptic, and incredibly miffed. Any other time Clarke would have laughed. 

'And the air?'

Clarke scratched her chin, thinking of a way to explain it. Asher spared her.

'The Ark was above the sky; it floated like a boat in a place called space. There's no air there. So the Ark had systems in place to keep the little air we did have inside the Ark clean. Those were the systems that Jake found were failing.'

'Jake?' Elesmera's voice took Clarke by surprise, and she looked at the daemon still nesting on her table with a slight frown.

'My father. His name was Jake Griffin.'

'Griffin?'

'My family name. I am Clarke Griffin, my mother became Abigail Griffin when she married my father. Before that, she used her father's family name.'

Lexa seemed to relax for the first time, although she still looked at her suspiciously.

'Are you sure your people are not a danger?'

Clarke shrugged.

'I just don't see how they could still be alive.'

She tried not to think of the effects oxygen deprivation had on the body. She tried not to think of the panic and anger that would ensue. She tried not to think of her mother.

 

 

Lexa took a deep breath. Klark's revelation was the last thing she expected. People in the sky. It sounded like madness. But she guessed it did explain how she managed to cure the ripa.

'So you cannot cure the ripas without old world tek?'

Klark blinked, blue eyes almost grey with tiredness. Lexa noticed for the first time the deep purple bruises under her eyes. How long had Klark been working in secret to heal doomed men?

'I can keep doing what little I can without it, but I can't really keep them alive through the healing process. Marrick's survival is something of a miracle. He was probably captured recently, and the poison hadn't had much time to destroy his body.'

Lexa grimaced. If the man lying on the cot looking like the living dead was in good conditions compared to the other ripas, she didn't dare to imagine what Klark had to deal with before.

She wondered if Klark was haunted by their faces. She wondered when was the last time she managed to sleep through the night. A while ago, she guessed, eyeing the tired woman slumped on the stool in front of her.

'It would be kinder to kill them.'

Klark's voice was quiet and resigned, tired. Lexa didn't like to hear it like that.

 

 

Lexa had taken the news of the Ark much better than she expected, Clarke thought with some surprise, blinking her eyes blearily trying to stay awake. The other woman had seated herself on the stool next to hers and was looking at her with something like worry in her eyes.

'What if there are others like Marrick?'

Clarke sighed. Her thoughts were starting to run together.

'If your men notice some ripas that seem in better condition than the others, have them brought to me. The others aren't going to survive anyway. Just kill them quickly.'

She saw Lexa nod.

'When did you last sleep, Klark?'

'Hmm?' She had lost the battle against keeping her eyes open, and her head was slumped slightly to the side, Asher's body the only thing keeping it up.

'When did you sleep last, Klark?'

'Can't r'member. Three days 'go? M'be two hours 'sterday.' She yawned and tried to open her eyes. Frowning when she failed.

'I will stay in the camp for a couple of days, if that is no problem to you, Klark.'

Clarke made a noise of assent, finally opening her eyes and forcing herself to stand up, shaking her head to clear it. She made for the door, ignoring the sound of protest from Lexa.

She peered outside the tent and located one of her guards busy in a glaring match with the Trikru bear, Gustus.

'Dolav! Have accommodations prepared for the Trikru, they are staying in the camp for a few days.' She ignored his frantic assent and Gustus' grumbling. 'Heda will stay in my tent.'

She didn't wait for the Trikru to say anything, although his displeased face told her more than enough, and slipped back inside.

She really needed to sleep.

 

 

Lexa was stiff as a board. Clarke had grunted at her to use her tent and made for the sleeping quarters, separated from the other areas of the tent by a heavy dark fur. She then proceeded to divest herself of her shirts and threw herself on the cot with nothing but her pants and bindings covering her. Leaving Lexa to stare at her with wide green eyes.

She moved only when a grunted order to lie down came from the mass covered with furs on the bed.

She kept her shirt on, merely undressing of her jacked, weapons and war paint, laying on the cot trying not to invade Klark's space. She couldn't avoid looking at her, though.

The general had already fallen asleep, her face relaxing and contracting methodically, even in her sleep she couldn't seem to let go completely. She traced the Azgeda ritual scars on her face with her eyes. Where years before the sight would have filled her with rage and pain and the memory of Costia, now she only thought of Klark. Sometimes of Roan's annoying smirks, but that was quickly chased away. The man was as irritating as a woodpecker next to the bed early in the morning.

Lexa took a deep breath, willing herself to relax and stop thinking about Clarke, Roan and woodpeckers. It took her less than usual to fall asleep.

 

 

After a brief period during which neither woman was quite sure how to treat the other -especially after an awkward morning waking up in the same bed, things started to get back to normal. Clarke had managed to keep two more ripas alive and had them draw a map of the caves under Maun-de with Marrick's help. Lexa almost couldn't believe it when Klark, excited, barged into her tent and showed her the map with the entrance to Maun-de used by the ripas.

Now if they only could find a way to get to that entrance without being melted by the fog.

She was dragged out of her thoughts by Klark stomping in her tent, ignoring the scathing glare coming from Anya, who had showed up at the Azgeda camp two days after Lexa, livid that she would entrust herself to a nest of vipers. With a slight gesture Lexa let Anya know to leave them. She didn't want to know what her old Fos' reaction to learning of Klark's origins and knowledge of the Maun-de would bring.

Lexa stared bemusedly at Klark, who dumped unceremoniously a lump of crinkled notes and sketches and maps on her table, golden brows dragged down by a deep frown. Asher perched next to Elesmera on the edge of the table, looking a bit ruffled. Elesmera eyed him curiously before pointing to him the state of his feathers, causing even more grumbling.

Lexa got close to the table, still keeping an eye on Klark's cute frown and analysed the notes. She had no idea what they were. She thought she recognized the dam on the side of the mountain, but the written trigedasleng on the edges of the paper was beyond her. Apparently, Klark's people could still write it.

'Klark, what is it?'

The woman was already deep into another page, jotting down something furiously and patting with her free hand around the table for the map to the tunnels. She hummed in question.

'What?' Lexa pointed at the dam. 'Ah. Just an idea. I figured they would have some sort of ventilation system, and it kind of figured it would be by the dam? So if we could break the dam it could possibly mess with the air-'

Lexa's brows shot up, she was suddenly very much interested in the dam.

'-But, Lexa. That damn thing withstood a nuclear apocalypse. There's no way we're bringing it down without a missile.'

Lexa slumped on her stool. Another scraped idea.

They stayed in silence for a while, Lexa looking curiously through Klark's sketches and trying to decipher the scrawled trigedasleng and Klark writing furiously. She furrowed her brows.

'Klark?'

'Hmm?'

'What is a nuclear apocalypse?'

 

 

Clarke was asking Marrick whether he remembered the code to open the door to the Maun-de by the tunnels for the trillionth time when a brilliant and possibly suicidal idea shot through her.

She interrupted the Trikru with wide eyes, apparently alarming him enough for him to try and sit up regardless of his less than adequate physical conditions.

'Marrick. Do you think you could pretend to be a ripa?' She eyes him critically, watching him sway even when sitting. 'Maybe in a couple of weeks, when you'll be able to walk around.'

Bushy eyebrows furrowed, and a sweet canine head cocked to the side, eyeing her curiously.

'I…guess, general. Yes.'

Clarke nodded, mind running a mile a minute and got up, barely looking at the confused man on the cot. She mumbled a parting and marched towards her tent running plans and scenarios in her head, almost crashing against a few warriors on the way.

She didn't even bother knocking on one of the poles by the tent, merely going inside still mumbling to herself, Asher flying in behind her. Lexa was at the table eating some fruit and looked up surprised when she saw her.

'Klark. Any news?'

Clarke looked at her with wide eyes.

'I have an idea to get inside Maun-de.'

 

 

Lexa stared at Klark with wide, disbelieving eyes. She really wanted to smack the damn woman. She sighed and pinched the bridge of her nose.

'Let me see if I've got everything right. You want to dress Marrick up as a ripa, pretend to have been captured and taken to the tunnels, infiltrate the Maun-de by telling them of the Ark and then what exactly?'

Klark seemed impervious to her cutting tone, apparently excited and gesticulating wildly to illustrate her points.

'Telling them about the Ark might give them pause before killing me or whatever they do to people in that place, and if I manage to escape I can find where they make or control the fog and disable it. Then, your army can march without being dosed by acid and I can open the doors from the inside.'

Lexa shook her head, disbelieving. 

'Klark. The whole plan is based on you managing to escape from wherever the maunon would put you and somehow navigating the entire mountain and finding a room. Then navigating it again to open the doors. It's impossible.'

Clarke huffed, frustrated.

'Do you have another idea?' 

Lexa pursed her lips, as frustrated with Klark as the woman was with her. She said nothing. 

'It's our best shot, Lexa. And Marrick still needs to heal, we have at least a couple of weeks to figure out what to do in detail.'

'No, Klark. I will not have you go on a suicide mission.'

'Dammit, Lexa! How else do you think we can take down that damn thing? It's a military bunker that survived a nuclear apocalypse. You're not going in with brute force! Besides, I had some training as an assassin, I know how to sneak around. I can use the ventilation system.'

But Lexa stood unmoving and resolute, Elesmera tense on the table, feathers puffed up and yellow eyes fixed on Asher.

'No, Klark.'

Klark finally seemed to explode, blue eyes almost grey with anger and frustration.

'Why!?'

'Because I cannot lose you!'

Both women seemed to freeze then, staring at each other with wide eyes.

 

 

Clarke definitely wasn't expecting that. She stared at Lexa, who was seemingly incapable of moving and was just standing in the middle of her tend, looking lost and more scared that she ever saw her.

Clarke sighed, her shoulders slumping.

'Lexa…we need to do something. It's our best shot.'

Lexa squeezed her eyes shut and turned away from her, apparently trying to wrangle back some control over herself.

'I…apologize, Klark. I should not have-'

'Lexa. Listen to me.' Clarke took a couple of quick steps and turned the other woman around, staring at her with soft eyes. 'I…care about you, Lexa. But we can't ignore what's possibly our best plan because we are scared.'

Wide green eyes sprang open when Clarke said she cared for her and stared at her with a soft desperation that broke Clarke's heart. She saw her gulp, plump lips parting to get more air.

'I- I know, Klark. We cannot afford-'

Clarke didn't let her finish, unwilling to listen. 'When I come back from the Maun-de, Lexa. I am going to kiss you. And then we are going to talk about this. Or the other way around. I'm not sure.'

 

 

The bindings on her hands were left loose in case of an emergency, and Marrick looked incredibly uncomfortable in his ripped furs and white paint. Clarke tried to give him an encouraging nod, valiantly ignoring the knot on her throat. Her eyes found Lexa's, green eyes wide and dark with pain. They had already said their farewells to each other in the privacy of the tent -where they could be Lexa and Clarke- and were now both stoic and strong, Heda Lexa kom Trikru and General Klark kom Azgeda.

Clarke felt naked under her gaze, probably also because she had left her weapons in her tent, unwilling to put the idea in the maunons' head that she might be dangerous and because they would just take them away.

With one last look, Marrick and her turned toward the mountain casting its shadow on the valley, and went into the forest.

 

 

Clarke came to with a jolt. She was half-naked in a small cage with Asher slumped on top of her and as soon as her head stopped spinning she looked around enough to see hundreds of other cages like hers. All filled with emaciated and pale people and daemons crammed together. Most of them seemed to be Trikru, judging by the tattoos, but she noticed an Azgeda warrior in one of the cages in front of hers. She ignored her surprise at seeing so many people alive and in cages like animals.

She struggled to sit up and blinked to clear her head. She attracted the Azgeda's attention, along with that of the others in their vicinity, and watched the woman's eyes grow wide at recognizing her scars.

'Warrior. What is your name?' She tried to infuse her voice with as much strength as possible, but her ears were ringing too much for her to be sure of the result.

'Echo kom Azgeda, general.'

Clarke nodded.

'Tell me what you know of this pace and what happens here, Echo. And any of you who have anything to add.'

'A woman with a white coat comes in sometimes and checks us, usually though it is one of their guards. They have a gun and a stick. They chose one of us and strap us upside down to that machine over there, and bleed us until nothing is left. Then they throw away the bodies behind that door.'

Clarke analysed the machine Echo pointed to her. It looked like some sort of gigantic filtering machine; or at least part of it. She noted that the cables that would have taken the filtered liquids back to the patient were instead connected to some sort of pipes on the wall. Clarke furrowed her brows and racked her brain; there was a similar machine on the Ark. Her mother used it to filter blood? She huffed. So their blood was taken to another room and used for something. Perhaps a community-wide form of radiation-induced anaemia? The would need a constant outside source of blood then, if their entire genetic pool was afflicted.

She frowned. She needed to get out of the cage. She looked back at Echo.

'Do you know anything about the ripas?'

'No, general. Wherever they are, it's not here.'

Clarke nodded and thought hard. They hadn't planned to find any of their people still alive inside the mountain, but she couldn't very well leave them there.

'Listen carefully, Echo. I am here on behalf of Heda.' A ripple seemed to go through the room, those near enough to hear her muttering and passing the words along. 'There is an army outside Maun-de ready to attack as soon as I disarm the acid fog and open the doors. I will come back and open the cages, those of you strong enough will fight the maunon from the inside while the Kongeda's armies fight them from the outside.'

Soon everywhere she looked she could still see emaciated and weak bodies, but whenever she crossed a pair of eyes she could see the determination and fight burning in them. She smiled.

'General, how do you plan to get out of here?'

Clarke clenched her jaw, thinking fast.

'We captured a maunon and got important information from him. I will be able to use some of that to infiltrate them.'

 

 

Lexa knew Anya was getting incensed at seeing her stomp from one side of her tent to the other. She had gotten back to TonDC as soon as Klark left and busied herself with whatever she could find to get her mind off thoughts of Klark alone in the Maun-de. At least until Anya dragged her to her tent to rest. She sighed and glanced at her old Fos. It would be a long day.

 

 

Clarke heard the bolt on the heavy security door sliding out of place and sat up, preparing for her performance. Asher sitting straight next to her. She took a deep breath and spared one last glance to Echo, nodding at the woman. She saw the guard approaching.

'Finally! I've been waiting for ages!'

Her voice seemed enough to startle the man, who jumped and whipped out his gun, pointing at her with wide surprised eyes.

'Get that thing out of my face, who are you, Rambo? I want to talk with your boss. Or leader, or whatever you people call whoever is in charge. And I want it to happen now.'

She wondered if the reference to the old world movie would be caught, and was pleasantly surprised when she saw the spark of recognition and confusion on the guard's face.

'Ehm…'

Clarke raised her brows, assuming a thoroughly put off and expectant expression.

'Well? Cat got your tongue?' She ignored how everyone in the cages was looking at her as if she had grown a second head.

Asher screeched, apparently startling the guard into motion.

'Look, Outsider-'

'Outsider? I'm from the Ark, you idiot! Has the air of this bunker not been filtered enough? Has the mould gone to your head?'

She had a second to wonder whether she was laying on it a little too thick when a female voice came from near the door.

'What's happening?'

Clarke didn't let the guard talk.

'I demand to be taken to whoever is in charge here! Seriously, has the radiation gotten to everyone's head in the past century?'

 

 

Clarke had almost cried when she was shown to the showers. She hadn't seen one in years. She used the brief time given to her under the jets of water to take a deep breath and let her shoulders drop infinitesimally, immensely glad and more than a little surprised that her improvisation actually worked. To be honest, she was expecting them to just kill her and be done with it. She spared a thought for Lexa, trying not to think what her death would do to her. Then she brutally took any thought that didn't involve bringing the Mountain down and shut them into a tiny little box in the back of her mind the way she learnt to do under her training as an assassin.

After a thoroughly enjoyable shower regardless of circumstances -she wasn't out of danger, after all, but she might as well take some pleasure where she could- she was taken to a rather nice office by two armed guards, Asher analysing everything from where he was perched on her shoulder. She kept chattering of the most inane things she could think of, channelling the image of a slightly confused but arrogant girl, no more dangerous than an average citizen and hoped Asher's appearance wouldn't completely throw her act out the window. After five minutes of the two guards looking more and more surprised by her constant old world references and somewhat irritated by her constant blabbering, an elderly if distinct man entered the office, looking at her with kind if cautiously surprised eyes, a small sleek snake around his neck.

'Ah, finally! Are you the boss around here? You look smarter than those two over there.'

She ignored the exasperated looks of the guards, staring at the elderly man in front of her with wide eyes. He actually looked kind, but Clarke knew better than judge a book by its cover. Especially knowing what she did about what happened in that hellhole.

'I am President Dante Wallace. And who would you be? I have been told that you're not one of the Outsiders. I must admit, I am quite confused as to how that's possible'.

Clarke forced herself to look confused.

'I'm from the Ark. Shouldn't you have received a signal a few years ago? I was supposed to land here, but my pod was knocked off course, and I landed basically on the other side of the continent. It's cold there. And the people are crazy. I mean, seriously, just look at what they did to my face! So you didn't receive any communication from the Ark? I sort of figured those…people had killed you, or something like that, and that's why you didn't come and save me.'

Clarke was pretty proud of herself for managing to say all that without running out of breath or tripping over her tongue. She could feel Asher digging his talons into her shoulder and releasing them, probably trying not to laugh. Dante was staring at her with wide eyes. Clarke figured he was surprised for the same reason as her.

Dante blinked and cleared his throat, looking a bit uncomfortable and sparing a quick glance at the dumbfounded guards behind her.

'Your…pod. Right. And where is the Ark, exactly?'

Clarke blinked up at him.

'In orbit. Duh. Where it's been for the past 100 years after the nuclear disaster. Have you been completely isolated? I mean, this was a military bunker, you should have the means to use the satellites. I just figured the Ark didn't share the fact that someone was still alive down there to avoid protests or something like that.' Clarke hoped no one would comment on how stupid that sounded.

'I am afraid we received no such communication. Is the Ark sending more people then?'

Clarke didn't have to try too hard to look heartbroken then. She shook her head, looking up at Asher to avoid people noticing how dry her eyes were.

'No. I was sent down here to make contact because the air filtering systems were failing. Everyone's probably dead by now…' Asher knocked his sharp beak softly against her scarred cheek, his affectionate gesture making her whole act more convincing.

A deep, uncomfortable silence fell over the room, no one really sure how to break it.

'Ah, well. I am sorry to hear that.' Dante took a tiny step closer to her. 'But you are well? Your…scars look old.'

Clarke shuddered. That wasn't fake.

'I -I am now. They…the outsiders, you call them? They thought I was some sort of invader. Or a spy. They…it was hard.' She tried not to think of dark dungeons and cold chains and clutched Asher to her chest. She looked back at Dante with wide eyes. 'My face is probably the least scarred part of my body.'

 

 

Those people were disgustingly trusting; Clarke almost pitied them. Or she would have if they hadn't spent the last century kidnapping people and using them as blood bags. Regardless of the holes in her story they just accepted her into their fold, letting her roam around in the common areas and even letting her shadow Maya in the infirmary when she told them she was studying with her mother to become a doctor before coming to earth.

Clarke shared a quick glance with Asher before he flew down a deserted corridor, careful to fly close to the ceiling to avoid the range of the surveillance cameras. They were in for a nasty surprise.

Every night she had sent Asher to fly around the bunker to map it and find the quickest routes to the control room, the exit and the room containing the huge tanks in which the chemicals for the acid fog were mixed. They figured they'd have to steal a key card form one of the guards since they seemed to be the only ones apart from Dante and his very disturbing son Cage to have access to all the areas. She didn't find anything concerning the ripas, but she did discover that they were Cage's project.

He really was a creepy guy.

She was biding her time, letting the days pass by while Asher collected information at night. They figured she would shut down the manual and electronic systems for the acid fog and run directly to the command room to open the doors while Asher created a distraction by freeing the prisoners from the harvesting room. It sounded fairly simple. At least in theory.

 

 

Lexa was starting to have troubles controlling the generals. Too many people ready for war with nothing to occupy themselves with and no enemy to fight was not a situation sustainable for long periods of time. 

She sighed, massaging her temples and sparing a look at the mountain silhouetted against the darkening sky. 

She hoped Clarke was fine. And that she would do something quickly, or they would have more than just the Maun-de to worry about.

 

 

Clarke accompanied the limp body of the guard to the ground to avoid making too much noise. She quickly took his gun and key card, Asher keeping guard behind her and ready to fly down to the harvest room. He had gone there the previous night to let the people know about part of the plan and to have the gonas keep their strength and prepare to create a sizable distraction.

Clarke got to her feet, silent as a shadow, and gestured to Asher to go while she stalked towards the locked door behind which were the tanks with the chemicals. She smiled darkly when the door open with a quiet beep after scanning the card. 

The room was fairly dark, only the service lights on to illuminate the three huge tanks and bare concrete walls. She made quick work of the valves by each individual tank and by the general controls, although it took her a while to figure out the central console.

Then she waited.

She was just starting to get antsy -her assassin's training might have helped in that regard, but she still was not a patient person- when a high pitched alarm started to sound.

She scrambled to power up the system, she was hoping that it would increase the pressure in the tanks with the closed valves enough to have them explode. As soon as she was done she ran out of the room, not interested in getting caught in an explosion with dangerous chemicals.

She immediately got into the ventilation system and followed the route Asher had her memorize in detail the past few nights; they had figured the explosion would divert the guard's attention as much as the prisoners escaping, and decided that using the ventilation system to get to the command room would be safer. There weren't many places to hide in a bunker mainly made up of concrete corridors.

She was about halfway to the command room when the explosion behind her seemed to shake the whole mountain. She grit her teeth, ignoring the scalding hot wind that almost flattened her against the metal, and kept crawling.

Her knees were killing her by the time she reached her destination, but she ignored the sensation in favour of studying the room from behind the grate. Most of the posts were empty, the computers blinking lazily in the half-light, chairs askew from where the guards probably sprang out to check the alarms. She could see Dante and his son Cage talking urgently to Emerson and another guard seated in front of a screen, typing away frantically.

She started to painstakingly remove the grate, trying to be as silent as possible and slipped into the room. Unfortunately, that was the exact moment Emerson turned around.

They stared at each other for what felt like an eternity, before his daemon gave a deep bark of warning to the others while he unholstered his gun. Dante and Cage seemed surprised and worried, and the other guard pushed them to the side.

Emerson pointed the gun at her.

'Freeze! What the hell are you doing here?'

Clarke smirked and arched an eyebrow, at least she didn't have to play the part of a stupid girl anymore.

'There was an explosion and prisoners mysteriously escaped their cages, and the strange new girl suddenly appears from the ventilation system. Are you seriously stupid enough to need me to spell it out for you?'

The man seemed to be shaking with rage, the muscle in his jaw popping and the gun in his hand trembling with how tightly he was holding it. Seemed like he had a bad temper. She could use that to her advantage.

Dante seemed to be attempting to get closer to their standoff.

'Why are you doing this? We have taken you in. Look at what those savages at done to you!'

Clarke didn't answer him, merely continuing to stare Emerson down and keeping an eye to the other guard and Cage. Dante was fairly harmless, at least when he was directly involved in physical violence, but Cage didn't mind getting his hands dirty and the other guard was trained. Luckily, she couldn't see a gun on him. 

Now, she only needed to get Emerson's.

 

 

Their standstill was interrupted by riotous screams coming from outside the room. Dante and Cage jumped, while the other guard got closer to the door. Clarke used the momentary distraction to lunge at Emerson, catching him by surprise and managing to hit his wrist just before he fired the gun, causing a bullet to ricochet against the concrete walls. Luckily for her, Emerson, while trained, was not used to actual fighting.

She made quick work of him, taking his gun and hitting him in the temple with the butt of it, both he and his guard dog daemon going down. She turned around, just in time to see the other guard pointing his gun at her, frantic at the sound of screams and gunshots from behind the door. Asher must have guided some gonas through the bunker.

She jumped beneath one of the desks, a bullet crashing through a screen near her head. She had never used a gun, but she had watched enough old movies while on the Ark to know the basics. And how more difficult than aiming a bow could aiming a gun be anyway?

A lot more difficult, Clark figured out after wasting three bullets. She was about to try and shoot another one when she caught movements at the corner of her eye, and barely managed to jump back between two desks to avoid Cage jumping on her.

Well. She could use him.

She jumped on him and wrangled his hands on his back after a brief struggle, pointing the gun at the back of his head. She ignored the praying mantis gesticulating wildly at her from where it was holding onto his collar. She panted a bit.

'I strongly suggest you stay still. We wouldn't want my hand to slip on the trigger, would we?'

She got out from behind the desks holding Cage in front of her, the gun pointed at his temple. Dante was crouching behind a desk near the guard, looking between her and his son with wild eyes.

'Clarke-'

She interrupted Dante, meeting his desperate eyes with steely ones.

'Open the doors to the mountain and let all the people you kidnapped go.'

Dante stared at her, desperate but resolute. 'I can't do that, Clarke. You think we don't know of all the warrior Outsiders camped around? They'll be on us immediately.'

She sneered. 

'Maybe you should have thought about it before you started kidnapping and torturing their families.' She twisted Cage's arm she was still holding behind his back when she felt him tense and move slightly. 'Now, open the doors, or I kill you son.'

 

 

Asher screeched, flying overhead the weak gonas fighting with sheer rage. They fell in spades under the bullets, but more were always ready to take their places and the guards were quickly losing ground. And running out of bullets. He spared a thought for Clarke, hoping she would manage to open the doors to the mountain quickly.

 

 

Clarke kept staring at Dante. She had shot Cage in front of him when he refused to open the doors. She ignored the body at her feet and pointed the gun at Dante, taking a few steps towards him. The guard at his side pointed the gun at her, seemingly intent on killing her. 

'Shoot me, and your president dies with me. You'll be left in the middle of a crisis with no leader.'

That seemed to stop the guard, who just stared between her and Dante with lost eyes, a small rodent peeking out from his breast pocket.

'Now. Are you going to open the doors or not? I can plead for some of you to be left alive' She lied.

'I am not going to do that, Clarke. I can't.'

Clarke narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out a quick way to get her way. Dante didn't seem willing to cooperate, even after his son's death, his snake daemon spitting venom at her. She spared a quick glance to the terrified guard, just watching from the sidelines, his gun pointed uselessly at the ground. It was a risk, Clarke figured, but she didn't have time to break Dante, if she even could have done it.

She sighed. Then she shot the President.

The guard let out a yelp and took a step back, seemingly forgetting about his own gun in his haste to get away from her.

'Now, you are going to open the doors for me.'

He seemed to be hyperventilating and tried to speak a few times.

'Why…would I do that? You just killed them!'

'If you get me inside the system, I will let your family and some of your people live. But if you do nothing, the prisoners you kidnapped and tortured are going to kill everyone. You don't want that, do you?'

She left the guard think for a few seconds, hoping her plan would work. They were running out of time.

Gunshots and screams from outside the door made the guard jump.

'You- you promise? You will let me and my family live?'

Clarke looked at him in the eyes. 

And lied.

'Of course.'

 

 

Lexa sighed from where she was perched on the edge of the bed. She couldn't sleep, too worried about Clarke, too busy thinking about their kiss. Too busy thinking about the possibility for more. She looked at Elesmera, sleeping peacefully next to her cushion. She sighed again.

 

 

The guard, Thomas, let her inside the system, letting her know what she was doing.

'This is where the outer edges of the bunker are situated. That's the doors-'

Clarke pointed at a bizarre grind icon. 'What is that?'

Thomas paused, confused, for a second.

'Ah, that's the air filtering system. It keeps the filters up so that radiations from outside don't get in from the ventilation systems.' He seemed very willing to help her between his fear of ending like Cage and Dante and her promise of keeping him alive.

Clarke made a noise at the back of her throat. 'Right. Just open the doors.'

Thomas showed her how to open the doors. The prisoners could get to the main corridor from a side door, and the mountain men could close the level to avoid the radiations spreading, he explained.

Clarke smiled from behind him, thanked him, then broke his neck.

She made quick work of the doors, figuring they would let the radiations in quickly enough, but decided to deactivate the air filters anyway. It was a better death than slowly dying because of one thousand cuts anyway.

 

 

Lexa was jolted awake by shouts from outside her tent. She had fallen asleep in a heap on the edge of her bed, and Elesmera had migrated towards her head, covering her face with one of her wings, making her sputter on her feathers.

She scrambled to get dressed and almost ran outside her tent, worried something might be happening, or that gonas from different krus might have been quarrelling. Strangely enough, she saw everyone running towards the entrance to TonDC.

Confused, she looked up at Anya, who had just gotten to her, breathing heavily, at her feet Feil stared at her with wide eyes, his tail puffed up.

'Heda…Lexa. The Maun-de.' 

Lexa straightened immediately, hiding her panic behind her carefully constructed mask. Klark…? 

Elesmera squeaked from her perch on her shoulder, digging her talons in her skin as she had forgotten to wear her pauldron.

'What? Anya-'

'Klark kom Azgeda. She…she felled the Maun-de, Heda. And she brought some of our people back with her. They were still alive.'

Lexa took a few seconds to digest the information, then she sprinted all the way to the city gates, stopping just outside to watch Klark walking proudly towards her while her people helped the weak and half-naked victims to walk, sometimes carrying them.

Asher screeched at her in greeting when they got closer, but she barely moved, still looking at Klark with wide eyes. She blinked when she saw the woman smirk at her in that rakish way of hers as if she was planning some sort of joke.

She blinked again, breathing deeply. Then she got down to business. Klark was alive and fine, now she had to be Heda. The change in Klark's expression told her she understood the way green eyes steeled.

'General, I am glad to see you and our people alive. What of the Maunon? Should we expect retaliation?'

Klark just shook her head, her left shoulder bending under the weight of her daemon when he propelled himself into the air.

'No, Heda. The Maunon are all dead.'

A bubble of silence spread near those close enough to hear, all sharing the same surprised expression as Lexa. Elesmera almost fell off her shoulder before catching herself.

'All…dead? How?'

'I let poison in when I opened the doors, Heda. They could not breathe the outside air.'

 

 

Clarke watched as different kru all feasted together, overjoyed at the news that the Maun-de would never again take and torture their people. Camps have been set up for the freed prisoners, healers working tirelessly to deal with dehydration, starvation, trauma, fatigue and injuries.

Clarke sipped at her mead from where she sat at the table with the other generals and Lexa, she wasn't exactly comfortable with the way people had started to look at her and making some strange gestures whenever she passed. Never having seen them before, she had to ask Lexa what they meant.

Apparently, people had started calling her Wanheda, the story of how she single-handedly killed every Maunon becoming more and more fantastical every time someone recounted it, and the gesture people made was apparently to get her favour.

It left her feeling very, very uncomfortable.

She looked at Lexa from the corner of her eye, talking quietly with her general Anya. She spared an instinctual huff at seeing the woman and focused back on Lexa; her brown hair seemed to glow in the light of the bonfire.

Maybe she could use her newfound popularity to sell the idea of her and Lexa to the people without causing an uproar. She had no illusions that her new status wouldn't create problems for the stability of Lexa's throne, but some kind of alliance or bond between Heda and Wanheda could come a long way to silence most protesters.

She took another sip of her mead, enjoying the bitter taste, met Lexa's eyes and smiled. 

They could think about it tomorrow.

After the feast, she had a kiss to steal.


End file.
